


The Good Man

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Canon Compliant, Coffee, F/M, Friendship, Love, Self-Doubt, boiler suits, heart-to-heart discussions, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 21:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10885692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: Clara is puzzled when the Doctor asks her to go for coffee, away from her flat, away from the TARDIS. The last time this happened it didn't end well. She finds the Doctor with a very important question on his mind: is he really a good man? And does Clara really want to travel with him after all?





	The Good Man

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime before the events of Face the Raven, yet after The Zygon Inversion, this story is about a heart-to-heart conversation The Doctor and Clara have when the Doctor has a serious moment of self-doubt. It was inspired by the arrival of Series 10 and the fact it has given some fans and some media writers licence to be merciless in their dislike for Series 8 and 9, particularly Peter Capaldi's Doctor and Jenna Coleman's Clara. This is my attempt to reflect the concern I have about this through these two characters ... without (hopefully) getting too meta in the process.

“Clara, am I a good man?”

Clara Oswald looked over her coffee at the stern-faced, grey-haired individual sitting opposite her in the café. The Doctor’s tousled grey mane, which seemed to alternate between close-cropped and “mad scientist” every time she saw him, was as wild as ever, almost as if he’d just spent a month stuck in a place with no barbers. Knowing him, he probably had.

But what caught the young schoolteacher’s attention on this occasion was how his intense eyes weren’t so much intense as they were pleading. He wanted an answer.

“Doctor, I thought we talked this out before. A long time ago.” It had been a few years earlier, in fact, soon after his most recent regeneration, and the Doctor had asked her to be his “pal” and tell him flat out if she thought he was a good man. Clara had fudged the answer a bit; rather than giving him a straight yes or no, she’d told him it was more important that he _tried_ to be a good man. 

After all, no one was totally good. No one was totally bad. Clara often had to push back the encroaching memories of some of the things she’d done during her time with the Doctor. Things that had made her ask herself a similar question … and ultimately give herself the same answer.

“Do you still think I’m a good man?” the Doctor said, breaking eye contact.

“What have you done, Doctor?” Clara started to feel an emptiness in the pit of her stomach. 

She knew it was unusual for him to break their long-established Wednesday routine. Asking to meet her on a Monday was something usually reserved for emergencies, forgotten birthdays or, OK, loneliness, but his summons hadn’t felt like any of those. Asking her to meet him at a café in the heart of London, rather than him turning up at her flat or in a supply room at the school was even rarer. In fact, the last time this particular scenario had happened, not long after she lost Danny forever, they’d parted company under the cloud of mutual lies. 

_If this is going to be a confession_ , she thought, _I am going to need something stronger than an espresso_.

“Doctor, tell me,” Clara said when he didn’t reply immediately.

“What … nothing … No, Clara, seriously, it’s nothing, everything’s fine,” the Doctor replied quickly as he picked up the gist of her question. “I haven’t done anything … well, not recently … it’s just … do you know I keep a diary?”

“Riveting reading, I’m sure,” Clara laughed. “Do you keep a tally of all the diabolical masterminds you’ve pissed off?”

“I gave up doing that a long t… and you were making a joke … right,” the Doctor pivoted, which made Clara smile into her cup as she took a sip. 

“Wasn’t that the book you had when we first met Ashildr?” she asked.

“That’s the one. I stopped keeping a diary while I was stuck on Trenzalore, but I thought I’d start up again.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say present company has inspired me to jot down my thoughts. My memories.” The Doctor smiled at Clara. “Figuring out what your facial expressions mean. Like the one you’re giving me right now, which is …” He took the compact leather-bound volume out of his pocket and quickly thumbed to a page. He studied the page and then examined Clara’s face. “Number Seventeen: ‘Get the hell on with it, Doctor.’”

“Bingo,” Clara said, intrigue overriding the slight wave of annoyance that had caused her to activate Number Seventeen. She leaned over to see if she could make out what was on the page, but the book disappeared back into the Doctor’s pocket.

He took a deep breath, then continued. “I also started to read over things I wrote when I was younger. Back when I was teeth and curls, back when I wore a mop top … even back when I wore that coat that looked like a unicorn had vomited a rainbow.”

“Hey—I liked that coat!” Clara protested. She’d found it while exploring the TARDIS wardrobe one day (it was hidden behind some bins—the coat, that is, not the wardrobe) and tried it on. Even though it was a number of sizes too large, and had what appeared to be an ancient carrot juice stain on the lapel, it still had felt like a pair of comfy slippers. She’d been in a rather anarchic mood at the time, and the coat rather reflected her unsettled state of mind. The Doctor had to remind her she was still wearing it when the time had come to drop her off home.

“Says the person who I once caught wearing a boiler suit,” the Doctor smirked.

“Everyone’s entitled to one stupid-arse mistake,” Clara grumped. “And it wasn’t a boiler suit, it was overalls. Overalls are cute.”

“I’ve seen overalls. That was a boiler suit.”

“Overalls.”

“Boiler suit.”

“Whatever. I just want to know how a photograph of me wearing _it_ ended up in the Black Archive. And then how _it_ also ended up in the Black Archive.”

“Listen, Clara, it’s not my fault I’d thought you’d been impersonated again. I had the boiler suit-” 

“-overalls-”

“-boiler suit put into the Archive for your own safety. After it was fully scanned and decontaminated by UNIT, of course. Clearly it was not of this world; it had to have been left there by-”

“-I bought the overalls at Wickes! I needed them for-”

“-Bob the Builder cosplay?-”

“-I … needed … them … for … school,” Clara seethed. At least, that was her story and she was sticking to it. The Doctor didn’t need to know about a certain lost bet with Osgood. Even though it involved him. She was saving that for when she was in the right mood to see how deep a Time Lord could blush. Which, at this rate, was probably sometime in the next ten minutes.

“Whatever you say, boss. But it was still a boiler suit.”

Clara rolled her eyes. If the Doctor was trying to tangent the conversation _he_ had started, he wasn’t going to succeed.

“Doctor, focus. You: good man with diary; me: caffeinated and confused.”

“When I asked just now, am I a good man, I didn’t mean it the same way I did before,” the Doctor began after taking a sip of his own coffee. As he talked, he popped three more sugar cubes into it, the sight of which made the filling in Clara’s lower-left molar ache. “I meant … am I a good _Doctor_? I mean, you’ve met all of me, right?”

“I don’t remember much about my echoes or that visit into your time stream. But I remember a few of you. I remember the hot one with the sandshoes, and the cute old guy you disowned for a while. I think I met another old guy who was you, but I can’t remember him very well.” (At this, the Doctor gave Clara a look that, in her own secretly kept index of the Doctor’s facial expressions, was number twenty-six, “Are you taking the piss?”) “Oh, and you and I played peeping tom on your Oscar Wilde-lookalike self during that thing with the art auction. And, of course, there was Bow Tie You. Why do you ask?”

“Do you miss Bow Tie Me?”

“At first, yeah. But then I realized you were still you. Still my Doctor. Still my friend.”

“But not until Bow Tie Me broke the rules and phoned you ahead of time. You were on your way out the door before that happened. Right?”

He had her there. He didn’t know that Vastra had given her a chewing out for being upset that the man she … well, had grown very close to … was no longer young-looking and dashing. Vastra had suggested Clara saw the Doctor as a lover. Maybe in time, that might have been true. But then he looked older. He was angry. He was colder. He was … different. And she couldn’t accept it. Not until Bow Tie called her. She slowly came to accept he was the same man she’d fallen for. But it was on the _Orient Express in Space_ where she truly realized … grey and distinguished were not bad at all. When she’d woken up on that rocky beach, wrapped in her favourite comforter, which she hadn’t remembered bringing onto the TARDIS, the Doctor sketching ridiculous designs in the sand with a stick, framed with a beautiful alien city behind him and looking absolutely ... _right_ ... she knew nothing had changed. Poor Danny.

Clara tried to answer the Doctor’s question, but found she couldn’t. Fortunately, he didn’t press the issue. 

Instead, he asked another question: “Was I a _better_ Doctor before? When I had the chin and couldn’t walk past a fez? Reading my diary, everything seemed a lot more … fun back then.” The Doctor couldn’t look Clara in the eye and instead focused his gaze on the sugar cube he held in his fingers. “Remember Akhaten? Living out a real-life Hammer Horror film in Sweetville? The haunted house?”

“It wasn’t all fun, Doctor. The Cybermen and that evil-you, the time I nearly died in a nuclear explosion, the Shroud … and splintering myself into a zillion echoes for you was no picnic, either.”

“But think of all the death we’ve seen since I changed. The people we’ve lost. Poor P.E. Me nearly killing you inside a Dalek—twice. Turning Ashildr into a monster. Hearing …” the Doctor dropped the sugar cube into the cup. “Hearing your voice on the phone when we thought I was going to die at the Drum and turn into a bloody ghost.”

“Life happens. Especially to people like us. Have I ever given you any reason to think you aren’t a good Doctor now?”

“Bow Tie Me would never have made you tell me to go to hell.”

Clara sighed. “Doctor, we’ve been over this. That was a wobble. And I was … frustrated … because of trying to be with you and Danny at the same time.” The Doctor cocked his eyebrow at that. But she meant it as it sounded. “I forgave you. You know that.”

“But I pushed you.”

“And I resented you for it. But the longer I’ve been with you … you’ve taught me to do what needs to be done. Difficult decisions are sometimes the only ones, isn’t that what you told me?”

The Doctor waited a moment before replying, and then looked right at Clara.

“Yes.”

The way the Doctor said the one word—a single, terse syllable—made Clara’s heart stop for a moment. She knew.

“Why?” she asked.

“You don’t deserve the danger I put you into. You don’t deserve to be with a poor Doctor who acts like a bastard. You deserved to be with one of the better Doctors. You’d have loved Scarf Me, or Cricket Player Me. I wish you’d had more than a couple of years with Bow Tie Me. He was young. You should sit this one out. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe the next me might be a better fit.”

“Doctor, stop talking like that. _You_ are the better fit. I’m not leaving you, end of.”

“I’m just giving you the-”

“-option? Doctor, you aren’t pointing a gun to my head. You know I can leave anytime I want. I want to do this. I want to be with you. Even when I had that wobble … even Danny knew, bless him. When I told you to shove off, I wanted to ask you to come back the moment I looked at that big, beautiful egg in the sky. I tried to convince myself I hated you. I tried to for weeks. Tried to convince myself I made the right decision. Even went so far as to talk to Danny about moving in together. But then we went on that bloody train and, yes, you pissed me off again … but there was you and me in the passage way, and on the beach later ... I realized, I finally understood you. I could still have walked away, but I made my choice. And I didn’t have to say yes that Christmas when you asked me to come back, either. I wanted to do this. I wanted to be with you. You, not some ghost of Doctors past.”

The Doctor tried to focus on Clara rather than the sugar cubes. He found it difficult when talking about these things. 

“It’s just I-”

“-have a duty of care. Yes, yes, I know.”

“I’ve told you that, then.”

“Seriously? Doctor,” Clara reached over and took his hand, “have you ever stopped to think I feel I have a duty of care for _you_ as well?” Clara angled her head slightly so she could look the Doctor in the eye. “I’m going to be honest, Doctor. Sometimes I don’t know what we are. There are times … I mean, outside of school and my dad and gran, you’re my life.”

“And that’s the problem.”

“No, it’s not a problem, Doctor. This is my choice. Because even though I don’t really know what _we_ are sometimes, I know what _you_ are. You are my best friend. Forget everything else. You are the closest person to me in this whole world.”

“And you to me. Except substitute ‘universe’ because, you know, TARDIS.”

Clara laughed. “And have you ever stopped to think that maybe I’ve asked a similar question about those who came before me, and whoever will come after, someday. Were they better than me? Was I better than any of them? Am I a good ... companion?” Clara knew the Doctor didn’t care for that word. But that is what she was. 

“I never think of it that way.”

“But you seem willing to think that way about your other selves. I can’t go around wishing I was Romana and able to regenerate on a whim like she did. Ace took out a bunch of Daleks with a baseball bat, for God’s sake. Sarah Jane is a legend at UNIT even today. Jack Harkness is going to live forever. Will anyone remember me?”

“They’ll remember you, Clara,” the Doctor said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Then why didn’t O’Donnell recognize me? At the Drum. O’Donnell seemed to know everything about you. And later when you told me what she’d said not long before she got killed: she mentioned Rose, Martha and Amy. Didn’t mention me. In fact she pretty much ignored me like _I_ was a ghost. I’m not going to be remembered, Doctor.”

“I don’t want to hear that,” he shook his head in denial.

Clara let go of the Doctor’s hand with a smile. “It’s OK, Doctor. I’m not in this to become famous. I’m in this because I want to experience this universe with you. It doesn’t matter what colour your hair, or how long your scarf, or if you get a bit grumpy from time to time or act like a bastard. You are the same man who I met years ago wearing a monk’s habit and building a quadracycle in my driveway. I thought you were nuts back then. Cute, but nuts.”

“Ah, but now I’m just a daft old man now. Still nuts, but not cute anymore.”

Clara nearly choked on her coffee. “You play the best guitar version of ‘Amazing Grace’ this side of Hendrix. You have an accent to die for. You’ve got eyebrows that the UN should classify as a weapon of mass distraction. And I swear I saw that Draconian warrior you yelled at last week shiver. A _Draconian shivered_. Cute is overrated. Cute, Doctor John Disco Funkenstein Smith, does not save planets. Cute … is not what makes me proud every time I see you save the day ... with a little help from me, of course!”

“But of course!” The Doctor smiled. “I thought I was the one who gave the speeches.”

Clara’s memory flashed back to a quiet barn on Gallifrey, her hands stroking a young head of dark hair, centuries before it was destined to turn white as its possessor became known as the Oncoming Storm. Another speech, but one he likely will never remember. But that didn’t matter.

“Like I tell my year sevens, even the best of us need a little pep talk now and then.”

The Doctor and Clara locked eyes for a few moments; they didn’t even notice they were holding hands again. 

“So, Miss Oswald, where are you taking me?”

Clara laughed. “Isn’t that my line?”

“I thought I’d mix it up a bit. Just one condition: no Jane. I still have waking nightmares from the last time you two got together.”

“OK, no Jane. Actually, what I have in mind doesn’t even need the TARDIS. Just the Tube. And this is just me and you. Not Scarf You, Cravat You, Cricket You, Technicolour You, Ears You, Sandshoes You or Any-of-the-Others You. Just You.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I want you to take me ice-skating. We’ve never gone ice-skating together.”

“But it’s nearly summer. I thought you said no TARDIS?”

“Queen’s Ice and Bowl, just around the corner from Hyde Park. Year-round ice-skating. And then we’re going to hit a late-night showing of the new _Mad Max_ movie and then you can tell me everything they got wrong with it and I can fangirl over Charlize Theron while we enjoy pizza.”

“With pineapple?”

“Is there any other kind?”

“That sounds more like a date than an adventure,” the Doctor frowned.

“And that’s bad because _why_?” Clara asked, her elbow on the table and her chin cradled in her hand, blinking at him with a pair of huge brown eyes the Doctor always found impossible to resist.

“Drawing upon all my experience, and all my lives,” the Doctor said gravely, before transforming his face into a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat’s to shame, “I can’t think of a single damn reason.”

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I've tossed in a few references that might need a bit of explaining:
> 
> The Doctor's diary made its return in 2015's The Girl Who Died, after having not been properly seen on screen since the 1996 TV movie. However, for this story I have the Doctor keeping the diary going until his 900-year stay on Trenzalore (maybe he left it in the TARDIS), and then picking it up again because he doesn't want to forget Clara. Yes, I know...
> 
> The boiler suit/overalls incident is inspired by a set of candid image of Jenna Coleman published in UK newspapers a while ago where she was seen wearing ... basically a boiler suit. Jenna Coleman has the ability to make anything look stylish, but this was a stretch!
> 
> Clara's "secret index" refers to the recently published "The Companion's Companion", which is a book secretly written by Clara (in real life Craig Donaghy) in hope of providing the next companion some advice. Part of the book deals with Clara's own attempt at deciphering the Doctor's expressions.
> 
> Twelve and Clara spied on the Eighth Doctor (the "Oscar Wilde" one) during the events of the Titan Comics story "A Matter of Life and Death". Clara's run-in with a nuke occurred in the IDW comics story "Sky Jacks". The Shroud refers to the novel "Shroud of Sorrow". For those keeping score, the Doctor refers to nearly killing Clara twice inside a Dalek; the first time was during Into the Dalek. The Draconian incident is made up for this story.
> 
> The ice-skating rink Clara mentions is a real place next door to Queensway Station near Hyde Park.


End file.
